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Australia return to South Africa for the first time since the 2018 sandpaper scandal, with new reporting revealing how more than 30 cameras at Newlands exposed Cameron Bancroft and the fallout that followed.
Australia return to South Africa for their first Test series in the country since the 2018 sandpaper scandal, starting on Friday. The tour has revived scrutiny of the events at Newlands, where Cameron Bancroft, Steve Smith and David Warner paid a heavy price.
Cameras Captured Sandpaper Evidence
The scandal unfolded on March 24, 2018. Bancroft took a small sheet of sandpaper from his pocket and tried to scuff the ball. Around Newlands, one of the most picturesque venues in world cricket, were at least 30 cameras, many of them manned. Not all cameras followed the Test match slipping through Australia's fingers or the backdrop of Table Mountain and Devil's Peak.
Some cut to the crowd or players between deliveries. That seemingly mundane role produced the shots that normally never make the telecast. SuperSport head of production Alvin Naicker said: Every Test match, we follow the ball. We have more than 30 cameras, 18 are manned cameras, the rest are on angles.
There are so many cameras, I don't know how people think they'll get away with doing anything wrong. The infamous vision of Bancroft working on the ball with what he first claimed was yellow tape was not aired live. It happened moments earlier, before the second ball of the 22nd over after lunch on day three. Naicker said one of the replay guys was recording it.
He turned around and said, Hey Al, have a look at this. I looked at it on preview and said, What happened there? He said, Just have a look. I look at it and go, Wow.
Smith, who was stripped of the captaincy and banned for 12 months for turning a blind eye to the plan when he could have stopped it, said: It was a long time ago, and I don't think there's much more to add. We're concentrating on the tour ahead.
Investigating the Newlands Ball Tampering
Reporting draws on recent conversations with more than 20 members of the 2018 Australian touring party, administrators, player agents and commentators, who mostly spoke anonymously, as well as earlier discussions and on-the-ground observations. Differing versions and unanswered questions remain. Who knew what and when? Were the teams tampering with the ball earlier in the series?
Did the swift Cricket Australia investigation capture the full picture? To understand how the scandal unfolded, one must return to the second Test at St George's Park in Port Elizabeth. Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland phoned Smith to restore calm. Smith brought his teammates together for a players-only gathering in the Port Elizabeth dressing room before play.
Crowd abuse was directed at Warner's wife Candice, who attended with their two daughters and her brother. An underhanded game within a game developed as the ball swung dramatically over a dry wicket. Reverse swing, usually generated by scuffing one side of the ball, had been a factor from almost the outset and Australia grew suspicious. The Australians suspected finger splints worn by AB de Villiers and Dean Elgar, noticing they jogged off and on the field several times.
They were also told umpires had found a discarded finger splint during the previous Test at Kingsmead. Warner grew agitated, believing SuperSport cameras were following him in the field. He looked up to see himself on the big screen repeatedly. His suspicions were well-founded.
After play one day he went to the office of ICC match referee Jeff Crowe to relay his frustrations. Warner wore strapping tape on his left hand, fingers and thumb, which he had broken before. With cameras trained on him, the inference was that he must be doing something other than shining the ball. He had written the names of his wife and daughters on the tape.
There have always been questions about whether Australia were ball tampering in Port Elizabeth, too, but no one has said so publicly. Nor has anyone said the South Africans took their own shortcuts, despite the visitors' belief that they did. Broadcasters were more than curious as to why wickets fell in clumps with an older ball. Naicker said: We knew the ball was reverse-swinging, but we didn't understand why it was reverse-swinging so early.
Warner's Distraction and Bancroft's Role
The spotlight on Warner at St George's Park explained why Bancroft, not Australia's vice captain and regular ball manager, was tasked with using a foreign object in Cape Town. Unwittingly, Warner drew more attention by writing names on his hand and finger strapping. Naicker said: It gave us reason to believe we should watch something. Why would he do that?
He was distracting from the fact he wasn't doing anything with the ball, it was actually someone else. Kagiso Rabada was charged for making physical contact with Smith. Crowe and the umpires took the two captains aside to demand they clean up their act. Ten days later at Newlands, with the series at 1-1, the edict went out the window again.
Australia felt a sense of injustice as Rabada escaped suspension and careered closer to disaster. Bancroft was sprung by the broadcaster's cameras after lunch on day three with a small yellow object, later revealed as sandpaper. All hell broke loose. The scrutiny had been on Warner, but suspicions piqued when he moved from his customary fielding position in the ring to the boundary.
Bancroft had not been a person of interest for the host broadcaster until the vision came to producers' attention.
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smh:This story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
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